What if? (P2) || Jake/Reader || Draft

Sunset (2/2)

At least it's not the middle of the night by the time they all show.

Grace and Evelyn convince you to come inside HG, and you're reluctant to give up Niikeym — so they find a happy medium with you. He remains in your arms, with his little half-mask over his face.

Norm walks down the hallway with Jake as they head out to the lobby area. Norm has a hand on Jake's shoulder, and stops him about halfway along to ask him about everything.
    "When did you first notice what was going on?"

Jake stops in his tracks as well, and pinches at the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Trying to think back to the first night together.
   "I guess I always knew. I figured it would wear off with time, or maybe it was just part of the whole post-partum deal."
   Because, regardless of everything you'd been through — this version of him was a first time father, and it didn't come as easy as you had known it was for your version of him.

"You told us the second you realized, Jake." Norm squeezes his hand a bit tighter on his shoulder. "It's okay. You know?"
He leads him over to the larger couches and insists he sit down for a while. "—Not everything comes so easy. I wasn't the best at first when Trudy decided she wanted to take in Spider. Now we've got two, but I know what to look out for at least."

"What do you mean?" Jake asks, sincerely. "- Spiders adopted?"

"Yes, but taking on a baby is a lot of responsibility. Adopted or not."
Norm kicks his shoes off and puts his feet up on the foot rest. "The amount of sleep you miss is a lot of stress, knowing your baby's crying and can't always figure out what's wrong.. feeling awful when they're sick and crying, or have an upset stomach and all you can do is wait for the medications to kick in.
   It gets to you."

"That makes sense. I've had a taste of it, even if my deal has been prioritizing her care while she's been obsessing over our son." Jake leans back as well, and starts fiddling with his own fingers.
  "I don't know how we're gonna handle balancing three. She's forcing herself to be his main caretaker, and I didn't mind— it's what she wanted, but .. today? ... it just got really.. bad.
    She hasn't let me hold him since birth, and if she does.. it's only so she can go grab something real quick."

"Trudy may not have given birth, but she's definitely driven herself crazy worrying about Spiders welfare.
    For example, We work in shifts typically. So, for a set amount of hours I'll get Spider, and she has Lia — then we switch, and then we have time where each person takes both kids so we can have time to ourselves before bed."

"That sounds .. pretty smart, actually. How do you work that out? Do you just roll over and go back to sleep in the middle of the night when it's the others turn and they start crying?"

"It's not hard. We set up the schedule for a week out every Sunday night - treat it like a job. And ... no, but we do have nights we trade off so one can get better sleep than the other.
    Lia has her mask for when she stays with us in the bed.. but some nights I'll take her out to our hut and wear my mask .. just stay the night with her."

"So what was Trudy's problem with the kids?"

"Oh, right. Yeah.
    Before the schedule was made, it was just us and Spider. She would get up every time he cried, or worry herself sick when he kept crying. Even with her injury .. she was always on top of things. I absolutely love that she's so driven to do everything, but it felt .. I don't know, upsetting, maybe? That I didn't feel needed as her partner.
   We talked it out, and this was our compromise. An almost equal split with the kids so she wouldn't lose too much sleep, and we started scheduling time together without the kids."

"That explains the vacation you two took a while back.. Now that I can get."
   Jake reminisces. "Plus, when she had her injury from way back, she had me changing her bandages or helping her get dressed. I felt like I was ... contributing, I suppose. I enjoyed knowing I made her day better. I can't even describe how much better my days been since we first met."